Brooklynites Catch Renegade Dog Poop With Hidden Camera Campaign

In Fort Greene, Brooklyn, the dog shit situation has simply gotten out of hand.

To combat it, a local block association started a "wall of shame" campaign, asking residents to take pictures of offending owners and post them to Facebook. One post reads:

For years block residents have been loudly complaining about people who think they are exempt from having to clean up after their dogs. Dog shit is discussing (sic) and toxic. There are no excuses for this behavior. If you can't clean up after your dog you should't have one. And it is a $250 fine. In the belief that it is only a few people who allow this to happen, we always wanted a photo or video or someone actually letting their dog shit and purposefully leaving it there.

So what did Abby Weissman, the dismayed block association president, do? He set up a webcam outside his house to catch the culprits in action. And sure enough, an attached video shows a woman on South Oxford Street "actually letting their dog shit and purposefully leaving it there."

The campaign, as it were, has not netted any more poop shots since Weissman's first, but neighbors have taken to Facebook with messages of support. Said one:

I am WITH Y'all all the way re/ catching dog-walkers leaving their poop on the ground. Oh does that drive me nuts.

Another told DNAinfo:

"[Fort Greene Park] has gone to the dogs," he said. "I think that some dog owners are very negligent and it happens more often than I would like for it to."

Dog shit is gross! For sure. If you have a dog, and it shits, you should clean it up. Just leaving it there is plain bad manners, not to mention illegal in New York. I'm not sure vigilante justice is the answer, though. As Ben Franklin didn't actually say: they that can give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety (from dog poop).